Chapter 686: Hudaiqiao Returns to the Second Defense Zone

Inner City of the Second Defense Zone.

Hudaiqiao's palace is situated where the core industrial district of the Inner City once stood.

Today, those once-towering chimneys have been twisted into spires hung with the skulls of suffering humans, and the sturdy walls of the factory buildings are covered in all manner of bones.

The air is thick with a stench of sulfur, blood, decay, and a more nauseating mixture of energy, so dense it is almost impossible to disperse.

A black wind carried Hudaiqiao's figure as he landed on the floor of the great hall, which was paved with bones and obsidian; he clutched his charred, psychically disrupted right arm, his scarlet eyes burning with rage and a trace of imperceptible fear.

In the hall, braziers burning with ghostly green flames cast twisted shadows onto walls carved with blasphemous Runes and faces of suffering humans.

"Those Cyberks..."

Hudaiqiao's voice carried disbelief.

"How did they become so... troublesome?"

In his mind flashed the figure with the prominent "B" symbol carved into their forehead; the opponent's precise strikes, eerie interference fields, and extraordinary cooperative combat ability had all caused him to suffer a great loss.

And it wasn't just one; it was a whole group!

"Huff... where is Falke?"

Hudaiqiao looked around and discovered that the high-ranking Demons serving in the hall were much fewer, and even the violent aura of Falke lingering in the air had faded significantly.

"Why is the aura of the elites within the Second Defense Zone so much weaker? The aura of the stored 'fuel' is also jumbled and chaotic!"

A hunched Demon attendant with multi-jointed insect limbs and compound eyes crawled out from the shadows, its voice shrill and full of sycophancy.

"Great Lord Hudaiqiao! You... you have finally returned! Not long after you left, our 'paradise' was attacked by Human forces!

Starting from the outer perimeter, their torrent of Steel... and that giant emitting a scorching aura... the offensive was exceptionally fierce!"

An uneasy light flickered in the Demon attendant's compound eyes.

"Lord Falke... Lord Falke believed this was an excellent opportunity for revenge. He... he took a portion of the elite Demon Legion, along with some of the Warlock Group, and set out personally... He said he would crush those bugs and wash away his shame with their blood."

Hudaiqiao's brow furrowed, and an ominous premonition clouded his heart.

"And then? What about the battle report? Why is Falke's aura so weak?"

The Demon attendant's body shook even more violently, almost prostrating itself on the ground.

"No... no battle report, great master! Lord Falke and his legion... there is no news at all! We tried to peer through with Witchcraft, only to see... see a blank space purified by pure power!

And... and the Magic Array Huguang of those terrifying silver giants... it was too blinding! We couldn't see anything! Lord Falke... he... he might... might..."

"Impossible!"

Hudaiqiao let out a low roar, the sound waves sending the Demon attendant tumbling away, crashing into the bone wall.

"Falke is a Great Demon! He..."

But he did not finish the second half of his sentence, because the lingering wound on his right arm from the "Cyberk" attack stung him, reminding him not to be arrogant again; no force that could survive until now had done so by mere luck, including the natives of this planet.

Even he had suffered a loss, and Falke, that reckless brute...

"Trash!"

Hudaiqiao waved his hand irritably, and a black wind swept up the Demon attendant, smashing it hard into the distance.

"Get out and maintain the operation of the 'Flesh Mill'! If the 'output' drops again, you can go be the fuel yourself!"

The Demon attendant scrambled away from the great hall.

Dragging his injured arm, Hudaiqiao walked to a "window" made of a massive crystal.

This crystal was not transparent, but rather like congealed filthy blood, barely reflecting the scene of the Inner City outside the palace.

What he saw was a human tragedy more desperate than hell.

The once-prosperous and orderly core of the Inner City had now completely devolved into a slaughterhouse for Demon revelry and an Altar for blasphemous rituals.

The wide avenues were now covered in a thick, viscous, dark red filth—that was dried, layered plasma mixed with unknown excrement.

On both sides of the road stood twisted metal spikes, upon which thousands of Human corpses were impaled.

Some had already dried into skeletons, while others were still "fresh," still dripping with viscous blood.

Low-level Demons wandered among the corpses, gnawing on severed limbs and emitting hair-raising chewing sounds.

The Furnaces originally used for production had now been modified by demonic Witchcraft.

The furnace mouths no longer spewed molten steel, but green Hellfire rolling with the phantoms of suffering souls.

Countless ragged, emaciated Humans, their eyes hollow and numb, were driven by the whips of Khorne Demons to push carts of their companions' corpses—or even those still alive but too weak to resist—into the insatiable evil Furnaces.

Above the Furnaces, a massive demonic Magic Array formed from countless faces of suffering slowly rotated, greedily absorbing the energy generated by death and despair.

Every time new "fuel" was added, the Furnace would emit a dull boom, and the faces of suffering on the furnace walls would let out a silent, twisted wail.

In the distance came the continuous sound of metal grinding and bones shattering.

That was a temporarily converted food processing plant, now known as the "Flesh Mill."

The massive, rusted gears and millstones were covered in dark red minced meat.

The living people driven here, regardless of gender or age, were herded like livestock by Demons onto a conveyor belt, then ruthlessly pulled in and crushed by the machinery... the air was filled with the heavy stench of blood and ruptured viscera.

The crushed "product" was transported through pipes to various locations, becoming rations for low-level Demons or materials for certain blasphemous rituals.

A mother holding an infant wailed and struggled before the conveyor belt, trying to protect the child in her arms, but was grinningly pierced by a low-level Demon with a Spear and pushed onto the conveyor belt together...

In the shadows of the ruins, one could occasionally see curled-up figures.

Most of them had dull eyes, having lost all luster, like shells from which the souls had been extracted.

An old man leaned against a broken wall covered in blasphemous Runes, clutching a severed arm tightly to his chest.

Several children, thin as skin and bone, huddled in a collapsed pipe, their eyes filled only with numb fear.

In the square further away, a group of Demon warlocks was surrounding a Human suspended in mid-air by their Witchcraft.

They poked at him with slender claws, twisting his limbs, creating various painful but not immediately fatal wounds on his body, and emitted harsh "laughter" as they listened to his shrill screams.

Several Hellfire hounds chased a soldier with a broken leg, pouncing on him and Bite-ing him, but not killing him immediately, enjoying the "pleasure" of the prey's dying struggle.

There was no hope, no resistance, only boundless suffering, eternal despair, and total blasphemy.

Human dignity, civilization, and life were crushed, Devoured, and transformed into nourishment for their evil power by the Demon here in the most cruel and systematic way.

Hudaiqiao watched all of this through the filthy crystal; his injured right arm was throbbing with pain, but what made him even more restless was the loss of contact with Falke, and the shadow brought about by those "Cyberk humans" who had suddenly become abnormally powerful.